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Data Breach Investigations Report – Education Insights

  • 05/08/19

New York  – Today, Verizon officially released the 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) - which found that slightly more than one third (35%) of all breaches in the education vertical were due to human error.

The DBIR series provides the most comprehensive view of global cybersecurity based on actual cyberattacks from malware to insider threats to cyber espionage, and this year’s report analyzes more than 41,000 cybersecurity incidents and over 2,000 data breaches from 86 countries. Key findings from the education sector this year include:

  • Approximately one fourth of breaches were web application attacks, most of which were attributable to the use of stolen credentials used to access cloud-based email.
  • There was a noticeable shift towards financially-motivated crime – with nearly 80% of incident motives being financial within the education sector. 
  • Cyber-espionage still a factor in this vertical, in part due to research partnerships with private industry and other sensitive information kept.

Additional findings from the education sector and insights on how to combat attacks can be found on page 38 of the DBIR (available here).

 

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